Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

jim cramer has been pretty amusing lately.

"Bear Stearns is gonna be fiiiiiiine!"

cramer can roll his bald head around my exponentially descending ball sack

why is your ball sack descending, burt_stanton?

i don't know :[

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/mar/16/creditcrunch.useconomy

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/steve_bell/2008/03/18/BEARMARKET512.jpg

^ exponentially descending

oh just STFU already

the money quote:

``He sounds like Herbert Hoover in 1930,'' said Bruce Bartlett, who served as a Treasury Department economist under President George H.W. Bush.

A persuasive argument for increasing regulatory capital requirements on banks (written last November but still relevant):

Why banking remains an accident waiting to happen

It's like the executive tells young J.R. in the Gaddis novel - "Make other people's money work for you."

is anyone calling for capital controls yet? :p

Hey so maybe this is working for a minute anyway?

Shit is rallyin.

Rally, pah

Shit Dead Cat Bounced.

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/steve_bell/2008/03/19/DOWNCLIMB512.jpg

Bounced? Dead cat is down so far today.

The Subprime Primer

is anyone calling for capital controls yet? :p

Rep. Barney Frank, chair of the House Financial Services Committee, had this to say today:

US investment banks need more regulation-Rep. Frank

water rolling downhill, etc.

Hey so maybe this is working for a minute anyway?

Shit is rallyin.

-- BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Wednesday, March 19, 2008 12:11 PM (3 hours ago)

HAW

we have a 4-pane screen in here and right now it is like so:

TUNER 1, CSPAN 2: CEO Pay For Home Mortgage Companies
TUNER 2, CSPAN : Allegations of Fraud, Waste & Abuse in Iraq War Spending
TUNER 3, CNBC : Fannie & Freddie's Surplus Capital Requirement Cut From 30% to 20%
TUNER 4, CNN : Lou Dobbs Tonight will be discussing the dwindling US Economy with some economists (right now cafferty is reading mail about iraq)

it is no longer necessary to use cut-ups or any other particularly holistic technique to see where my country is headed

shitbin

http://www.treehugger.com/toilet-llqq-001.jpg

round the bowl down the hole roll tide roll

fuckin stan goff flippin me out with shit like this

Mark Jones eight years ago described the post-Cold War booms as the capitalist metropoles digesting the fallen Eastern Bloc, somewhat slowly, “like a snake who’s swallowed a goat.” The snake is shitting now… and starving.

The unfolding economic crisis — which surprised the mainstream commentators and analysts, but about which those crazy leftists have been Playing Cassandra for a decade — is now firmly off the tracks and roaring toward some abyss.

Maybe this
belongs in Rolling Looming Apocalypse?

haw

everybody wants to live in the end times

even I don't believe suburbanites are going to rise up. that's crazy talk

like, the suburban and exurban folks losing so much that they start a revolution because of this is like people saying microsoft is going to go out of business because everybody hates vista and the xbox is a money pit

even I don't believe suburbanites are going to rise up. that's crazy talk

-- El Tomboto, Friday, March 21, 2008 12:45 AM

this is heartening somehow

When it comes to the economy the suburban people, as they say, wouldn't know how to pour pee out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel. They'd be just as likely to blame illegal immigrants, or too-high taxes on business.

haha yeah democracy and its attendant myths are also a good hedge against uprisings. of course everyone probably said exactly that about feudalism too

barry's column in esquire is pretty much why I love him: http://www.esquire.com/the-side/opinion/dont-fear-bear-stearns

You're supposed to raise your standard of living by working harder, being clever, earning more income -- not by using your long-term savings. And now this current generation is pretty much fucked. When push comes to shove and they go to take money out of their houses at retirement time, they’re going to find out that there ain’t a whole lot there. They better pray that Social Security is still around in 20 years -– not exactly a sure thing.

plus the fact that as a dude who runs his own firm in downtown manhattan and rolls out on the weekends to mcfuckin' richdude town, he still posts excitedly when he gets a great deal on some gadget - "Hey guys I found this 7.2 megapixel camera for only $174!!" total money nerd bro

they won't rise up, but I wonder what it'd take for a mortgage strike. Rent strikes weren't that long ago, after all.

It's important not to conflate well-grounded economic chicken littlism with grab-bag political nutso fantasizing

actually I'm not really sure why that's important at this point

lol

My workplace automatically enrolls us in some sort of mandatory-contribution pension, but the 401K/or whatever variation thereof, is optional. I requested information, but it seems I had to pick the stocks myself, rather than just sit back and let them do it for me. They don't match, so is it worth it to even do it?

There are probably tax benefits, although I don't know if they're better than IRA or ROTH IRA accounts - you should probably ask the benefits person about that. I'd also guess you have options besides just straight stock-picking. I don't know a lot about it because my job doesn't offer any kind of 401k. But if you can, you're probably better off with mutual funds or indexes than trying to pick stocks.

I've never heard of a 401K plan where you straight up picked stocks instead of funds (and company shares). Look at the pension plan, think about what you'll need or want when you retire that the pension doesn't cover, then whip out a calculator or use any of dozens of free online retirement calculators to figure out what kind of percentage you ought to be putting away. When I select for my 401K contribs I go 50% fixed income/bond backed funds, 30% indices (like S&P 500 or dj small cap index) and 20% "growth" funds. Probably nothing wrong with 100% fixed/bond backed, I just like to tinker with everything.

the tax benefit is the same as a regular IRA in terms of effectively deferring taxes until you withdraw

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/401(k)_IRA_matrix

there are some 401(k)s that have a brokerage option, where you can buy individual securities or non-plan mutual funds or ETFs. mine doesn't, though, and i wish that it did b/c some of the fund offerings are pretty shitty.

also, i would take the roth 401(k) if it is offered -- b/c distributions will be tax free when they are made (absent some future congressional tinkering). it does hurt your paycheck, though, b/c contributions are post-tax.

pfft I don't need that many choices, I'd spend all day trying to allocate

and the equivalent of a "mortgage strike" is called "jingle mail" -- i.e., when one realizes that the "flip that house!" nonsense isn't gonna work any more and the house is worth less than the mortgage, and one just mails back the keys to the McMansion or the luxury condo to the mortgage processor.

I prefer the extra liquidity now over the roth stuff.
I know that my overall effective tax rate in 2042 will be in all likelihood quite a bit higher than 19.82% but by 2042 I will probably just be a brain in a jar anyway

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080321/ap_on_bi_ge/living_with_parents

see, back in the day, that wouldn't even be an issue, because by the time you're fifty your parents are supposed to be well and dead or so close to it you're moving in anyway

This sort of talk:

Parents "jeopardize their financial freedom by continuing to subsidize their children," said Karin Maloney Stifler, a financial planner in Hudson, Ohio, and a board member of the Financial Planning Association. "We have a hard time saying no as a culture to our children, and they keep asking for more."

makes me feel a bit icky. If anything, I think our culture prizes financial independence from family way more than others. Sure no parents should indulge a deadbeat child forever, butI think it's worth risking your blessed "financial freedom" a little to help a loved one in hard times.

The Stifler family making a mark once again.

There is, or should be, no shame in moving back with family, and there is no real financial pain for the parents in taking a child back in. although the article talks about subsidizing lifestyle as well as having them back home, not so sure about that

there has been massive wealth transference from young to old, it is no surprise this is happening

this article is not so bad, compared to the ones we have in the uk. the current vogueish articles are about 'the bank of Mum and Dad'. you would think that these articles would be about feckless children sponging off parents, but no! The Bank of Mum and Dad is being presented by the media as a viable and positive way to replace banks that will no longer lend!!! last gasps of the ponzi scheme over here

http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/article3590383.ece

believe it or not, The Times is a respected newspaper in the UK

Getting help from anyone is the ultimate libertarian sin (and probably the most common shameful libertarian secret)